The SMART SCHOOLS project, committed to contribute to sustainable development in the cross-border area, has organized a festival to promote innovations developed within the project.
The SMART SCHOOLS project aims to introduce energy efficient investments and renewable energy sources to public schools in the Brod-Posavina County in Croatia and Tuzla Canton in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The partnership’s idea is to increase school capacities in the field of energy management and raise awareness on energy efficiency, especially among students and young innovators.
Attracting over 100 students, the Solar festival was held at Gymnasium Živinice in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 18 April 2019. Gymnasium Živinice was also one of the schools which participated and won a prize at the „Change the habits – equip the school“ competition on energy savings.
The Solar festival is a manifestation dedicated to promote SMART SCHOOLS’s achievements, particularly the solar laboratory, photovoltaic system, students’ exhibition on solar energy and innovations developed as part of the Youth Innovators’ Camp. This camp was held in Slavonski Brod and was attended by 20 young innovators from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, which jointly developed energy efficient prototypes. More information on the solar laboratory and photovoltaic system is available here.
The festival was attended by representatives of the Government of Tuzla Canton, Brod Posavina County from Croatia, Živinice city, non-governmental organisations, local community, students and project partners.
“I expect new generations enrolling this school to be more innovative, although we are very satisfied with the attitude of the Gymnasium towards renewable energy sources. To illustrate, we studied together for nine hours a day instead of planned six hours ” – said Ismet Salihović, Head of the Department for Renewable Energy Sources in the Centre for Development and Support Tuzla, and educator for students at the Gymnasium Živinice.
Photos by CRP.
The SMART SCHOOLS project is implemented by five partners from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Programme Priority Axis 2: Protecting the environment and biodiversity, improving risk prevention and promoting sustainable energy and energy efficiency. The total budget of the project is 1.644.127,82 EUR and the total EU co-financing is 1.395.864,49 EUR of ERDF and IPA II funds. The project started on 1 June 2017 and is expected to finish on 31 August 2019.
